Meaning:
To look totally exhausted or ill.
Background:
The earliest use found is in the Soldier's War Slang Dictionary, published in
1939.
Soon after Ngaio Marsh used it in Death and the Dancing Footman (942): "I look
like death warmed up and what I feel is nobody's business."
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For the classroom fatty, PE tests were a daymare. He'd fail everything: running,
jumping, shot-putting, pullups, pushups, ab curls, you name it.
He dreaded the most the 1000 meter run where the boys set off for two and a half
laps. It felt all too soon that everyone else finished in time and in grace and
he alone was left in a humiliating race with himself. Here, he was paying for
yesterday's top spots in English and math, for which he had paid dearly and now
he was paying more. Under a scorching afternoon sky, a short plump kid inched
his way along the baked dusty dirt track, his heart thumping, his head aching,
and every step a shot of pain, toward the degrading and inevitable F.
As long as he didn't quit, the teacher had to wait just to record a failing time
at the finish line. A few classmates would circusee in the nearby shade,
watching death warmed up. Even the giggles from the girls playing across the
field sounded condemning: "You, the clumsy boy who made last, nobody wants you.
You are out of the gene pool."
